I note from a perusal of the cast lists that former Pacific Northwest Ballet principal Casey Herd will be partnering Sofiane Sylve in the Grand Pas de Deux at the evening performances on Thursday, December 17 and Saturday, December 19. Here is a direct link to the casting page on the SFB website. (Casey left PNB for a position with Dutch National Ballet.)

Having been mostly disappointed by the change to a San Francisco template for the SFB revamped Nutcracker, I've stayed away for the last several years, if for no other reason than to marshal a new perspective when it came time to see it again. The MacCaulay chronicles reignited my interest in any and all versions, and so there I was back again not in the Land of the Sweets, but watching divertissements from hither and yon staged in a hothouse. I will never accept the loss of the angels in costumes and wigs that made every child look and feel beautiful onstage, and the ginger children in their gingham dresses. Now they show up in what began as cow pelts, and after complaints that they looked like Gateway computer product placements the bovine splotches have been turned into clown-like black polka dots. Mother Ginger, no longer the nice lady next door who perhaps baked krumkake or spritz cookies, is now renamed Madame de Cirque, and looks to be a woman of ill repute who, lacking virtue, seems to have wrapped herself in the flag, patriotism being famously the last refuge of a scoundrel. Strangely, refuge is also taken under her lifted skirts. It would seem to me that any child who spent even a minute there would be likely to show up on Oprah later in life exposing much more of her than she exposes of herself! There are likable concepts (such as the flowers and bugs and the Where the Wild Things Are costumes), but they do not find a creative echo in the choreography. Act I lacks any identifiable humor, unlike the Ben Stevenson version, which is raucous. There is no buildup to Fritz's decapitation of the title role prop, and so it's just one more confusing event on a stage filled with quotidian rather than festive party transactions. The Sugar Plum Fairy's steps seem always to stop short of what one is hoping for: Couldn't we have just one tour jeté that begins its chassé on a diagonal from upstage? Just when we think that might happen we get a brief scroogy little balloné instead. Whenever the music says "Go!" she is forced to stop short. We start to take pity on the very character who is supposed to confer holiday cheer. Happily, there is no change in the Grand Pas, and I was lucky to see Clara Blanco and Isaac Fernández Hernández dance it at the Wednesday matinee. It transported me to the good old days, the remnant that remained of the Christensen version. Their costumes--gold and aquamarine--were lovely and lavish--and Clara Blanco's timing, placement, sensibility and authority when she brings her arms down after having deeded us all those refinements--was absolute. Isaac, only 20(!) just gobbles up space, with flowing arms and legs, great elevation and spiffy turns: they are a Christmas chemistry set under the tree. On Thursday, I saw Lorena Feijoo and Vitor Luiz, veterans of the Grand Pas, dance it. Theirs was sure, regal and filled with tiny treasures. It was also pleasurable to see Jennifer Stahl's Snow Queen. She was fighting an orchestra that seemed to be asleep in the pit, but she triumphed smilingly over the obstacles placed in her way, and reigned supreme. Please bring back the old version. San Franciscans know where they are: what they want to see is the manners and customs of a bygone era outside the Gate.

I agree with some, not all, of Toba Singer's criticism (the Waltz of the Flowers has the best music and worst choreography of the ballet and the Spanish variation does not look Spanish at all; OTOH the Chinese is the first I've seen that does not make me cringe and I like the views of San Francisco). However, the Grand Pas de Deux with Lorena Feijoo and Victor Luiz was, all by itself, worth the price of a ticket.

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